you sound almost defensive, Maggie,’ he drawled. ‘I was just being sociable and trying to show some interest.’
‘I’m sure you were,’ she retorted from between clenched teeth as she turned back to the toaster. ‘Would you like some of this toast, or what?’
‘I’ll have a rummage through the icebox to see if I can reproduce one of Mrs Morrisons’s famous fry-ups.’
‘There’s only bacon and eggs. If you want that I can cook it for you.’
‘So can I,’ he said, the faint tinge of mockery in his tone setting Maggie’s teeth on edge. ‘I’ll even cook you some too, to prove what a sociable guy I am.’
‘That’s quite all right—I’ll do it,’ she said. The last thing she needed was to be standing around with nothing to occupy her. ‘You must be tired—what with your body clock being all askew,’ she added, just to make sure that he got the message that her cooking him breakfast was not to be the norm. ‘Would you like tomatoes with it?’
‘I’d love tomatoes with it,’ he replied, further irritating her with his mocking stress on her English pronunciation. ‘Do you enjoy cooking, Maggie?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘So, you’re just an old-fashioned girl who likes to take care of a man…I think I’m going to enjoy this stay after all.’
‘My other reason for offering to cook this is simply that I’m not at my best first thing in the morning,’ retorted Maggie, having extreme difficulty in keeping her tone in any way civil. ‘I like to have something to keep me occupied, otherwise I’m quite likely to doze off.’ She unwrapped the bacon, unable to believe the rubbish she had just spouted. ‘And that wouldn’t be very sociable, would it?’
‘I’ll have to take you at your word about how you feel at this hour,’ he murmured, ‘but from where I’m sitting you look great. You haven’t drunk your coffee…I’ll make you some fresh.’
There was absolutely no need for him to lean over and against her as he reached for the kettle, but that was what he did. Her body responded in a way that both startled and horrified her, melting to a liquid state of unequivocal sexual excitement as the heady, newly bathed masculine scent of him engulfed her.
So unnerved was she by the totality of that involuntary response that an equally involuntary shriek exploded from her as, in her panic to escape, she leapt smack into the kettle he had just lifted.
‘Now, that wasn’t very smart, was it?’ he drawled, putting down the kettle and taking her face in his hands.
‘What are you doing?’ she protested, twisting violently in an attempt to escape those hands. ‘Stop it!’
‘For God’s sake, stop being so damned stupid!’ he exclaimed, his hands tightening in a vice-like grip. ‘Your nose is bleeding.’
‘Get your hands off me!’ she cried, a note of hysteria slicing through the words as her hands tugged frantically at his arms.
‘Hell, anyone walking in here and seeing you dripping blood and freaking out all over the place would assume I was trying to kill you!’ he exploded, his eyes blazing fury as he abruptly released her. ‘Just what in hell are you playing at?’
‘What do you mean, what am I playing at?’ shrieked Maggie, unable to exert any control over herself. ‘You’re the one who’s just broken my nose with the kettle!’
‘I don’t believe this,’ he groaned softly to himself, then reached over to a roll of kitchen paper and tore off a couple of sheets. ‘Here—dab your nose with that. And for God’s sake don’t blow it.’
Maggie took the wad of paper and gingerly did as he’d said, the madness at last mercifully subsiding in her. Then she wondered just how much of a mercy it was as she found herself face to face with a blackly scowling man, the angry heave of whose chest had loosened his robe and exposed an expanse of fine, silkily hirsute darkness.
It was when her mind’s eye began casually stripping the entire robe from that magnificent body that she was reduced to considering pinching herself to end what had to be a ghastly nightmare.
‘It doesn’t seem to be bleeding any more,’ he muttered, flashing her a distinctly hostile look before grabbing a teatowel and walking over to the fridge. ‘You’d better pack this around it for a while,’ he said, handing her the towel, now wrapped around a mound of ice-cubes. ‘It might prevent it swelling.’
Now feeling an utter fool, Maggie moved towards the cooker, the lumpy towel clamped to her nose.
‘Now what are you doing?’ he demanded in weary exasperation.
‘Cooking your breakfast’
‘Don’t you think you have enough to occupy you?’ he drawled, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Forget it—we’ll go have a look at the lab facilities, then get ourselves breakfast downtown…assuming, that is, you’re up to it.’
At first Maggie was surprised at how well Slane knew his way around, then she remembered that he had spent quite a bit of time in Dublin.
‘Did you come here on holiday regularly?’ she asked after a silent battle with herself. They had exchanged barely a word since getting into Connor’s car, but a subconscious fatalism in her reasoned that, having committed herself to stay, her best bet was to try to establish at least a veneer of civility between them before she got around to confronting him. The only alternative appeared to be a descent into out-and-out war…
Besides, there was this growing, insistent part of her showing an insatiable need to find out everything there was to know about him…Not that she had any intention of indulging it to the full.
‘Not on holiday, exactly,’ he replied. ‘We did visit quite a bit, but my dad had this thing about me not missing out on the Irish half of me. I went to school here as a kid—though I went through high school in the States. I was also here at Trinity before going on to Yale.’
‘Didn’t you mind?’ exclaimed Maggie involuntarily.
‘What was there to mind?’
‘Surely it must have been disruptive—switching between the Irish and American education system like that? And what about leaving your family and friends?’
‘I was a bright kid, so the differences didn’t bother me,’ he replied. ‘I guess I was also a pretty secure one. It wasn’t as though I was packed off to Ireland against my will; I was given the choice and I couldn’t wait to live here for a while. As for family and friends, I knew they’d still be there when I got back—which was most vacations.’
Bright, well-adjusted and utterly modest, thought Maggie wryly, and that had just been the child!
‘I guess you had a more conventional childhood,’ he murmured as, with the outskirts of Dublin behind them, he speeded up along the coastal road, beside which angry grey seas sent foam-tipped waves hurtling across mile after empty mile of pale gold sand.
‘I guess you could say that,’ responded Maggie drily.
‘Oh, I see,’ he chuckled, the sound sending shock waves of heat rippling through her. ‘This is to be a “tell all” for me and a “tell nothing” for you. Great.’
Maggie bit back an angry retort, reasoning with herself that she could hardly blame him for the effect he was having on her—an effect of which he seemed, thank heavens, mercifully unaware.
‘I’m sorry if you got that impression,’ she said, trying so hard to feign normality that she ended up sounding prissy, ‘but there really is nothing to tell. I went from one school to the next, in the same town, then on to university—there’s hardly anything exotic about that…Where exactly are we heading?’
‘To a place just outside Dun Laoghaire,’ he replied, taking